Gazetteer

Tangle liked a good challenge. And, no mistake about it: This was a challenge. She was working on a very limited timeframe, with who-knew what sort of obstacles or opponents in her way. It was up to her to bring a dangerous fugitive to justice -- and snatch him right out from under the nose of the Order of Seals!

The posting of bounties was one of the principle ways that Knight Commander Clara Lux kept order in the north. Rather than trying to run down every small time bandit, thief and conman with her own knights, she would simply put a price on their head. The order usually had the money for it; although the sums that Clara had taken with her when she'd left her family had been exhausted years ago, many of the towns and villages effectively under the Order's protection were more than willing to chip in a modest amount for their continued operations.

Accordingly, a rather large bounty had recently been placed on the head of a man going by the unlikely name of Banehallow -- not that Tangle was in much of a position to criticise others for having unlikely names. Evidently, the infamous old scoundrel had undertaken a job or two that had seriously raised the Knight Commander's ire, judging by the truly impressive sum of money listed next to his name. 5000 gold. 6000 if he was brought in alive. For whatever reason, she sure wanted that man taken out of commission.

Tangle was not there for that bounty. No, in fact, she was there to beat it; her client was quite desperate to have the man brought in without the Order of Seals getting their hands on him. Maybe Tangle wasn't being offered as much money as she would have gotten from the Knight Commander, but sometimes there were more important things than money. Like bragging rights. If she could have lived off of bragging rights alone, she would have happily done so.

Candelabra was a sleepy little city in the Northern reaches of Bern. She had been tracking her man for a week and a half, and wasn't entirely surprised that the trail led her there. One would think that a city would be harder to hide in than the countryside around it, but the Lord of Candelabra was quite vocal about his disapproval of the rogue knight orders in general, and the Order of Seals in particular. Here, the man wouldn't be troubled by the local guards, and there was a not-insignificant chance that any bounty hunters who made trouble would.

Candelabra was largely a thing of wood and iron nails, built into a great cleft in the earth, protected by natural stone walls on three sides. It wasn't a pretty place -- the log cabin look lost some of its homey appeal when applied on such a wide scale, Tangle decided -- but it was a relatively safe place if it were ever attacked. And it wasn't big enough that tracking down one very noticeable man would be too much trouble.

Presuming, of course, that she could find him before someone else did.

"So, this is what happened to the last people who tried what we're going to try," Connie said. They were standing amid the ruins of a farmhouse; it didn't appear to have been inhabited in years. All around, plantlife was starting to grow back in, overtaking the now roofless house. Except for the place that the Ilian pointed to.

In front of the farmhouse, cutting a wide, ugly swathe through the green, was a wedge of scorched black earth. The low stone wall that encircled the property ran straight through the middle of it -- or rather, it had. It had crumbled away under intense heat, the blackened, cracked stones now lying in shattered pieces amid the barren land. Another patch like it stood out bold and ugly on a hillside a short ways off.

"The Mage General has a lot of flaws," Connie explained. "One of them is that she's predictable; everyday, she used to come out here almost by herself and just sit and think for an hour. Someone decided to take advantage of that. Seven assassins confronted her here -- heavily armed, well trained, experience. And they all died." She turned to look at the three people she was talking to. The little ragtag team of rebels and mercenaries she would be taking on one of the most dangerous missions of her life. Introductions had already been made; they all knew roughly what one another could do. They were out here to talk hard specifics about the job ahead.

"So, the thing about the plan is, well, not to confront her. You all follow so far?"

The Western Isles are still in the grip of rebellion; Etrurian forces, headed by infamous Mage General Dawn Quell, are doing their best to drive rebel forces back and out, and so far, in the open field, they are winning. Quell, known as "the Pyromancer", is often credited with being one of the most powerful magic users alive, and has in her possession what is rumoured to be the legendary tome Forblaze. In addition to posing a significant threat on the battlefield herself, her presence serves to both boost Etrurian morale and scare off potential rebel recruits who don't want to be burned alive by magic.

That's why Constance, one of the Ilian mercenaries hired by rebel forces, has been contacted to plan and execute an assassination on the Mage General. Planning will need to be tight and well executed, and an outright fight would most likely be disastrous. As she has decided that the members of her squad would be unsuited to this task, she has decided to -- very carefully, very quietly -- contract out.

This job requires individuals who are:

-- Willing to engage in assassination and "dishonourable" tactics-- Capable of some rudimentary level of subtlety-- Won't baulk at killing "innocent" Etrurian soldiers-- Willing to risk making an enemy of one of the most powerful nations on Elibe-- Interested in making a lot of money quick

Name: Constance (prefers "Connie")Title: Pegasus KnightAge: 26Gender: FemalePlace of Birth: IliaNation/Group of Allegiance: Ilia, whoever is paying her at the time

Class: Pegasus KnightLevel: 16Weapon Levels: Sword: BWeapons:

Weapons: Click Here To Show/Hide This Text

Wind Sword: -- B ranked steel, Flierslaying Enchanted(Wind) sword.A green-hilted long sword designed to devastate airborn enemies. Its wind enchantment wreaks havoc with winged creatures of all description, and its sharp edge can kill just as easily as any other blade. Somewhat limited by the magical potential of its wielder.

Height: 171 cm (5'7''Build: AthleticAppearance: Connie looks like someone who's been in a scrap or two. Numerous small scars can be found all over her body, from the many that dot her hands to the slowly fading line above her forehead. She has long since lost track of where they all came from. Her straight dark hair is kept in a braid down to her back, leaving a hard, unfriendly face unframed by black locks. Her face is characterised by cold, dark eyes and a sharp nose.

Her usual attire involves a boiled leather armour, with a light steel breastplate and helmet. She doesn't dress to impress so much as she dresses to stay alive. Her pegasus, having been with her for years, is a fairly vicious beast of war, fully willing to kick and bite both in combat, and out of it when he becomes sufficiently annoyed.

Overview: Connie lives up to all of the worst stereotypes about Ilia. She is, by her own admission, "a vulture who makes her due fighting other people's' wars", and is in fact quite proud of this fact. In the Ilian mercenary tradition, the majority of her wages are sent home; half for herself, and half to help support her family on the farm. Despite this arguably noble motivation for her work, Connie does not have some hidden "heart of gold" behind her gruff, often cruel exterior. She is a hardened killer, and is willing to play the part of thug or assassin just as easily as the part of soldier; as long as the pay is right and the job isn't beneath her skill.

She is the leader of a small, battered, but experienced squad of pegasus knights. Recruitment into her band is difficult due to her reputation as a strict and unyielding commander -- as well as the tendency for people to die under her command -- but she is as loyal to those women who do serve under her as she is to her country itself, or to her siblings back home.

Biography: Connie was born the youngest of four children, to a family with farmland enough to split between two. It was a foregone conclusion before she could even walk that she would need to find some other way to support herself. This could have meant marrying into a family with more space, or taking up a trade. It could have meant putting together enough coin to become a trader, or even leaving Ilia behind to live the life of a travelling performer.

What it actually did turn out meaning was participating in that time-honoured tradition of sending your youngest child off to live the hard life of a mercenary. By the time she was ten years old, the decision had been made, and the little girl was sent off for the hard training of the Illian pegasus knights. After five years of sweat and toil, she left to do her apprenticeship with a travelling mercenary band out of Bern. There was always plenty of work there, and she quickly found herself in dangerous skirmishes, especially once Bern's formal campaign ended.

Connie became a full mercenary knight, and continued fighting in Bern. A bad winter and a bout of sickness killed both her parents, but she began sending her wages back to her siblings as they struggled to pick up the slack. When Helter's rebellion began, she was among the pegasus knights hired by Etruria, and she fought in several major battles.

Connie became the leader of her squad following the death of the original leader, in a routine caravan escort that crossed too close to bandit territory. At 22, by most standards she would have been too young to lead, but by that point she had been fighting for 7 years and was a veteran of two wars. Few lived to be terribly old in their line of work, and it was experience and skill that counted more than what year you were born.

Four years later, Connie is still not dead. Now she finds herself involved in another rebellion. This time, though, it isn't Etruria that has hired her...

The clouds drifted around uneasily overhead, obscuring the sky and casting the mountainous terrain in a troubled gloom that matched Amity's mood almost perfectly. In some ways, things were better than they had been. In others, they were much worse.

The low level panic that had been in the background of her thoughts constantly for months was completely gone. Not forgotten, or momentarily subsided, but gone. And for the first time since that house-thing, she felt like she could genuinely think straight. At the same time, though, things were less than perfect.

She wasn't crying anymore, but she was still deeply upset. And she was also confused. The panic was gone, but not because she'd simply gotten over it, or gained new inner confidence or anything similarly healthy. She had made a deal with a ghost found in the basement of an inn, and she no longer had the capacity to fear. Except for when she did.

Amity stared at the sheer drop to their right, frowning. She slowed to a stop, letting Symphony increase her lead on her, and walked to the edge. Growing up in Araducia, Amity was not particularly afraid of heights. However, being this close to such a sheer, bone-shattering drop should have made her feel something. But it didn't. Almost frustrated, Amity edged a little bit forward until her toes were actually sticking out over the chasm below. Still, nothing. There was the intellectual knowledge that this was dangerous, and that a fall would kill her, but no screaming instinct to get back to the edge, despite the fact that a particularly strong gust of wind might be all it took to send her topping to her messy death.

Here she was, perfectly calm on the edge of a cliff. And all she was worried about was the reception she was going to get back home.